


all the night's magic

by joely_jo



Series: Moondance [1]
Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Betazed, Established Relationship, F/M, Falling In Love, Imzadi (Star Trek), Past Relationship(s), Pre-Canon, Pre-Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:15:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25634167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joely_jo/pseuds/joely_jo
Summary: First in a series of stories set at the Janaran Falls on Betazed, depicting key moments in the relationship of Will Riker and Deanna Troi.
Relationships: William Riker/Deanna Troi
Series: Moondance [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1858213
Comments: 13
Kudos: 31





	all the night's magic

**Author's Note:**

> While I love the Peter David novel Imzadi, I have a few problems it, so in the spirit of fanfic, I've chosen to ignore its existence and stick to the somewhat limited canon of the series. I've assumed that Will and Deanna were together for much of his time on Betazed.
> 
> At the moment, there are three stories planned for this series, but I may write more depending on if the mood strikes me and feedback is good!

all the night's magic

2359

It was just past 18:00 when, as requested, he arrived at the Troi mansion and rang the doorbell. He stood on the step for an inordinate amount of time, hands clasped behind his back, waiting like the good lieutenant he was while he heard vague sounds of activity from within: heels tapping on polished marble floors, a shout from Lwaxana Troi and then, finally, the door opened and Deanna was there. She was dressed in a simple blush coloured dress that fell to her knees, her hair tied back loosely at the nape of her neck with a wide ribbon of dark pink silk. She looked utterly stunning but had that quietly confident air of the naturally beautiful, like she had barely made an effort. “Will,” she greeted him and her smile was typically stellar. “Sorry for keeping you waiting. I thought Mother had let you in.”

“No, no, she didn’t even answer the door. I guess it’s a good job she’s a telepath and could tell it was me and not someone more important,” he teased gently. 

Deanna threw a narrow-eyed glance back through the still open doorway. Lwaxana was standing at the far end of the entrance hall, a vision in claret taffeta, and flashed her daughter a wide, knowing smile. “Have fun you two!” she called joyfully and disappeared with a flourish.

They headed out through the ornate and carefully manicured grounds of the Troi mansion and to a waiting transport shuttle beside the road. He climbed in and she slid beside him, clasping his hand tightly as the shuttle took off and began its pre-programmed flight towards their destination. “Where are we going?” he tried, even though he’d asked before and she’d already told him it was a secret. 

“Shhh, Will, just relax. We’re going to one of my favourite places.”

“It’s out of the city?”

“Oh yes.” She leaned into him and took his hand, quiet and at ease, and as seemed to often be the case, it wasn’t long before he found himself soaking up her emotions and relaxing too.

As they soared above the city, Will contemplated how, despite his initial determination to dislike every second of his posting here, he now had a growing appreciation for Betazed’s understated charms. Riix was busy and metropolitan, but in a deeply cultural way, like a European city, and Will had been surprised by how he’d soon felt at home amid its wide, roaming streets, ornate stone buildings and lush parks. 

When they finally began a descent, they had long since left the city behind and were heading into a deep semi-tropical forest. The shuttle wound its way through the canopy before putting down beside a waterhole where a number of long-legged yellow birds were wading through the shallows. “Come on,” Deanna encouraged as she climbed out and waited for him to join her.

Will stepped out of the shuttle and was immediately met by the sounds and smells of a thriving ecosystem. Lalda birds shouted their two-tone cries from various points in the trees around and the air was damp and rich with scent. Beneath his feet, the ground was soft, spongy and dotted with tiny blue flowers growing wild. Deanna turned and smiled at him. “Welcome to the Forest of El Kiyi Var,” she said. She took his hand and squeezed it. “El Kiyi Var was a mythical figure from our past, a musician who played a golden horn, tempting lovers to come into the forest and make love beneath the trees so he could bless their souls with music from his horn.”

Grinning, Will leaned into her shoulder. “Is that what we’re here for then?”

She looked up at him archly. “Maybe. But I have somewhere else I’d like to show you first. It’s a bit of walk though, so I hope you’re up for that.”

He nodded and they got on their way. They walked hand in hand through the trees for a while until Will began to hear a sound coming towards him. It was a low susurrus of water, and it grew steadily in intensity until he realised that they were heading towards a waterfall. At length, they emerged onto the side of a river valley, the forest growing thickly both above and below them. He realised they were half way up a precipitous drop and the path they were on fell away in a curve downwards through vegetation and rocks. The waterfall before them tumbled a couple of hundred metres in two clear stages, a small, fast-moving pool forming on the mid-level near to where they were standing and then below, further down, another much larger pool that appeared to be significantly deeper, and apart from the crashing of the falls into its surface, was calm and still and clear as glass.

Will’s eyes filled with the sight and he murmured, “That’s some waterfall.”

“The Janaran Falls,” replied Deanna. She stood still a moment, staring at the plummeting water, then turned and grabbed his hand again. “Come on, let’s go down.” 

He followed her lead as she skipped adeptly along the roughshod path that zig-zagged down through a hundred metres or so alongside the falls. Spray from the water filled the air and he could feel it catching in his hair and giving a silvery sheen to his clothing. In the sky, the sun was beginning to set, turning the Betazed clouds pink as roses. There were a few people about – someone on the trail just in front of them too – but it was quiet and he felt like it wouldn’t be long before they were truly alone. Perhaps that was her intention, he thought. She had a knapsack on her back and it was full enough to probably contain blankets and food. If he listened, he was reasonably sure he could hear the clanking of glass bottles as she walked.

“So is this place on the tourist map?” he asked when the trail widened out and eventually led onto a rustic wooden viewing bridge that arced over the plunge pool, providing a view of the waterfall itself and, behind them, one of the river as it snaked off along the valley floor. He looked up and noticed a building perched somewhat crazily on the side of the valley above the falls.

“It is. But they don’t allow many people to visit in a day. You see the monastery up there?” She pointed at the building he’d just been looking at. “The monks consider the falls a holy place, where the Gods have blessed us with their most profound natural beauty. They restrict access so that that beauty isn’t at risk of being damaged.”

Will hummed. “It is beautiful.”

He leaned on the bridge’s wooden balustrade and looked at the water sliding away beneath them, then back up to the vista before them. Sunlight glimmered on the falls, casting a rainbow in the spray. She came to stand beside him, close enough for their shoulders to rub together, and they watched in silence as the sun descended.

At length, there was a flicker of light and he startled to see the waterfall suddenly illuminated by a hundred or more points of white light, like candles hidden in the vegetation. It looked like a starfield. His gasp made her chuckle beside him. “They come on at sundown,” she explained. “In one of the old stories of El Kiyi Var, he uses the power of his mind to light a trail of stars for a pair of lovers who are lost in the forest. The monks had these lights installed to recall that story.”

“It’s a spectacular sight,” he observed. “So this El Kiyi Var character was more than just a hunter?”

“Many people say he was the first monk and that he built the monastery out of the valley side with his own hands.”

“A man of many talents, then.”

She gave a small shrug. They stood there on the bridge for a long moment, watching the falls and the twinkling lights, until the sun was a huge glowing ball sinking into the horizon. Deanna was warm beside him and he leaned into her, wrapping an arm around her. It had been just a few months, yet it was strange how he felt so comfortable in her presence. In all his previous relationships, he’d never felt so completely at ease with someone. It was as if she filled all the spaces inside him so that there was no room for anything but an overwhelming sense of contentment. He turned his head and saw that she was watching him, so he moved in for a kiss, which she gave him willingly. It was slow and soft and undemanding and as she slid her tongue into his mouth he started to feel the unusual sensation that had been growing in his head during their most recent intimate encounters. It was a little like there were the pads of fingers massaging his brain from within, and the urge to push back against the pressure, to embrace her from within, began to grow.

She pulled back and the sensation vanished. At the abrupt withdrawal, he blinked at her, feeling tongue-tied and a little stunned. She stood back a step, then dropped her pack on the ground and reached behind her neck. In one smooth movement, she let her dress slide from her body and pool at her feet. Will’s eyes widened. “Deanna, what are doing?” he asked, stupidly.

“I’m going for a swim.”

“A swim? In there?”

“Yes. Are you coming?”

“I, er…” He glanced around him. They appeared to be alone, but he hesitated. He was not on duty or even in uniform, but he knew that going for a skinny dip with a woman wouldn’t exactly be called proper Starfleet decorum. But, still, he didn’t want to sound like he wasn’t keen so he flashed her a grin and suggested, “You first.”

She smiled and reached down to unstrap her sandals, then smoothed her hands up her own legs in a deliberately tempting gesture. She removed her underwear and, like everyone on this whole damn planet, looked utterly serene when naked. Will’s mouth went dry. She was so fucking gorgeous.

Deanna grinned and he realised that he must’ve been broadcasting his feelings quite vividly. “I heard that, Will.”

“Sorry,” he apologised with a shrug, though he wasn’t really sorry at all. “I can’t be held responsible for the instinctive reactions of my human brain.”

She began to walk away from him, casting him a glance back over her shoulder that would’ve been enough to melt him if he were made of ice. Slowly, she descended the bridge. In the moment when she disappeared from sight, Will shifted his position so he had a fuller view of the sandy bank where he imagined she would go to enter the water, but when she didn’t appear, he looked around, confused… and caught sight of her standing on a massive rocky outcrop above the pool. She was poised at the edge, her body slim and tight and he could see that she was centring herself, about to jump. He opened his mouth to shout to her to be careful, but at that very moment, she took a little skip hop and dived. Her body arced gracefully through the air like the flash of a batleth blade, and she plunged into the water with the little more than the slightest of splashes. It was perfect synchrony, he thought appraisingly as he waited for her to re-emerge.

A moment later, when she rose like some kind of mythical creature out of the water and smoothed her hair back off her face, he felt his heart surge. Her face was glowing in the last rays of evening sun, the ringlets of her hair looser with the weight of the water in them. Treading water, she turned to him and smiled. “It’s warm, Will.”

She floated to the surface and laid back in the water. His eyes roved over her – the gentle lull of her breasts, the nipples like tight little pearls, the softness of her belly stretched taut as she swept her arms above her head and tilted her head back in the water. Her eyes were closed, expression dreamy, and her hair fanned out and rippled in the water as if it had a life all of its own.

At the sight of her, a rush of desire flooded through him, compelling him. What the hell, he thought. If he had to stand here and watch her, he might not be able to stop himself from doing something wholly against Starfleet decorum. With a quick surreptitious glance around, he started to shed his clothing too. 

Under the bridge, the bank was cool and he stepped gingerly across the pebbled edge to walk into the water. Deanna watched him as he waded in and then kicked off into a crawl when the riverbed fell away beneath him. “Hey,” he greeted as he came up beside her.

She wrapped her arms around him and he revelled in the feel of her wet skin against him, slippery like a fish. They kissed a moment, then she pulled back and returned to floating on her back. “This is called the Pool of the Moons,” she explained, turning her head to regard him. “On certain nights of the year, it is possible to see all three of Betazed’s moons reflected in the surface. The stories go that if you come to bathe in the waters on one of those nights, El Kiyi Var will bless you and his love music will follow you throughout your life.”

Will was a little surprised by the romance of these tales she was sharing with him. It was clear why she had brought him here, but he’d never had her pegged as a superstitious kind. “I always thought you were a scientist, Deanna,” he admitted, “who didn’t believe in stories and myths.”

“I didn’t say I believed in the tales,” she said. “I mean, they could be true, I suppose, and they’ve just grown in the telling over thousands of years, but they could be made up entirely. I just rather like the idea, that’s all.” She swam back to him and rested her hands on his shoulders. “I always wanted to bring someone I cared about here… Someone I loved.”

He was startled by her words. It was the first time either of them had used that word to describe what had been building between them, but to his surprise, he found himself not baulking or panicking in the slightest. Surprising, he thought, how he’d have run a light year if any woman had dared to suggest the idea of love to him before, but now, with Deanna Troi, somehow it seemed like nothing more than the next, natural step.

Reaching up, he caressed her cheek and once again, he felt the strange sensation in his head. He studied her carefully. “Deanna, I… I’ve been feeling something for a little while now… Something I’ve never felt before.”

She smiled at him, the expression widening to a delighted grin. “Are you trying to say you love me too, Will Riker?”

“I, er…” He frowned, unable to explain himself without sounding like an idiot. “I think it’s something else. Maybe.”

Head tilted, she looked deep into his eyes and he knew she was reading him empathically. “Describe it,” she told him after a moment.

“It’s in my head. It feels like a kind of gentle pressure. This is going to sound so stupid… Sometimes it’s just a bit more than a tickle, then other times, like now, it feels stronger, like there’s a pair of hands trying to open me like a jar.”

“Will…” Her voice was soft and shocked. She reached up and fingered a few strands of his hair.

“What?”

“I don’t believe it…”

“Believe what?”

He was starting to feel uneasy now, wondering if this was something he shouldn’t be feeling or if he’d been foolish to confide in her. She closed her eyes. Then, suddenly, the sensation in his mind intensified and his mouth fell open in dumb wonder.

“Oh my God… Deanna… what, what are you doing?”

The pressure built and a rush of colour and light filled his head. He could feel her outside him, her hands on his shoulders still, her legs now wrapped around his waist, but he could now feel her inside him too… As if he was being touched by her deeply, caressed and held in a most intimate manner. And he realised he could feel her presence, her mind and the warm white glow of her love for him.

She pulled him into a kiss and the feeling surged again. This time, he almost gasped with the intensity of it. It felt so enticing that he wanted to do nothing but gravitate towards it, towards her, like coming home to a roaring fire on a cold night.

They kissed and kissed and with each moment, their touches grew more and more erotic. In the daze of one who was drunk or drugged, he realised they were at the edge of the pool and she was climbing out of the water. He followed her and then grabbed her, picking her up and turning her around in a crescendo of joy. They kissed again and this time, Will relaxed into the sense of her in his mind and heard her sigh. A few short and shaking strides and he set her down amid the cool grasses of a glade overlooking the waterfall. With a tenderness he had never felt before, he made love to her with his hands and his mouth and she returned his attentions back to him, like a mirror. When he pushed inside her, he realised he was so close to her it was like they had become one and he heard her whisper something that was maybe out loud or maybe deep inside his soul.

_Imzadi…_

Later, when they were done and had rescued her pack and their clothes from the bridge, they placed a blanket on the ground and used another to cover themselves, twining their bodies together as closely as they could beneath it. “Imzadi,” he murmured. “What does that mean? I heard you say it to me when we were… When I was…” His voice trailed off, words feeling incredibly lacking to describe what had just passed between them.

Deanna smiled. “It’s a Betazoid word. It’s most often used as an endearment, like humans would use the words ‘sweetheart’ or ‘darling’, although many young people prefer different terms these days. But it’s actually a concept, an idea that stems from our most treasured philosophies.”

“You’re going to get all metaphysical on me now, aren’t you?” he teased.

She eyed him gently. “Well, you did ask…”

“I’m sorry,” he said contritely. “Continue, please.”

“Remember when I told you about how my people value the bonding of minds above all else?”

“You can have sex like everyone else, but you can also have sex with your minds, or something like that,” he said. He couldn’t help the slightly amused tone in his voice; it was still a concept he was trying to wrap his head around. He had always been a physical being and the idea that two people could lie next to each other and make love mentally without laying a finger on each other was almost impossible for him to quantify or imagine.

“Why do you sound so sceptical?” she asked. “What we just experienced was something very similar.”

“I don’t know what you thought we were doing, Deanna, but we were definitely having actual sex.”

“No, Will, you misunderstand me. For us, it just happened to occur at the same time as the physical act.” 

His brows knitted together and he searched her face for a further explanation. He’d come to realise that while he was practically smart and able to problem solve his way out of all kinds of situations, Deanna beat him hands down when it came to the actual understanding of theory and concepts. 

“Imzadi as a philosophy is that somewhere in the galaxy, everyone’s soul has a counterpart, another soul that perfectly compliments their own and with whom they feel utterly at ease. When those two souls meet and join, that is Imzadi… a bond between two souls that will exist no matter what happens thereafter.”

Will stared at her. “And that’s what that was when… when…”

“Yes,” she replied simply. “And it felt just as incredible to me, Will.” She leaned towards him and kissed him, nestling her body along the planes of his.

“Can we… Can we do it again? Will it happen again?”

“Of course. In fact, I imagine I could teach you to communicate with me telepathically if we practised.”

A wicked grin flashed across his face; he couldn’t help himself. “This is going to require practice?”

“Plenty.” She met his gaze and for a moment he felt the gentle pressure in his head again.

“Are you trying now?”

She nodded. “Keep focused on me. Clear your mind.”

Eager to see if he could actually do it, he did as she told him, closing his eyes and concentrating hard on the feel of her in his head and the warmth of her in his arms. He released a deep breath and then shivered…

_Imzadi…_

His eyes snapped open. “I heard you! You said Imzadi!” He couldn’t hide the thrill of the moment and he rolled on top of her and took her face in his hands. “That was… incredible! Do it again.”

“Will…” she said in tolerant amusement.

“Deanna…” He softened as he looked at her. “Imzadi… I love you.”

“I love you too, Will.” 

Leaning down, he kissed her deeply. And as they sank together once again, drowning in the sensation of their newfound connection, Will imagined that he could hear a horn playing in the darkness, beneath the moonglow of Betazoid skies.

**Author's Note:**

> The titles from these stories are all lyrics taken from the song 'Moondance' by Van Morrison. I've always had a soft spot for this song and it made me smile when I saw Jonathan Frakes put on his Twitter/Instagram that he was listening to Van the Man one day during Lockdown!


End file.
